Prado trying to keep South San dysfunctional

Since the presence of a TEA-
appointed conservator, Connie Prado has been resisting efforts to improve board governance at South San Independent School District.

Since the presence of a TEA-
appointed conservator, Connie Prado has been resisting efforts to improve board governance at South San Independent School District.

Photo: Express-News File Photo

Photo: Express-News File Photo

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Since the presence of a TEA-
appointed conservator, Connie Prado has been resisting efforts to improve board governance at South San Independent School District.

Since the presence of a TEA-
appointed conservator, Connie Prado has been resisting efforts to improve board governance at South San Independent School District.

Photo: Express-News File Photo

Prado trying to keep South San dysfunctional

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The conservator assigned to the South San Antonio Independent School District by the Texas Education Agency is not going away anytime soon, and that’s a shame.

There should be no need to assign someone, at taxpayer expense, to ensure policymakers do right by the students in their districts. Regrettably, conservators are currently assigned to oversee operations in 10 independent school districts in Texas. Two of those districts — South San and Southside — are in Bexar County.

Southside will soon be losing its conservator, and its elected board will be replaced by an appointed board of managers.

The state education agency’s intervention in South San has not been as severe. Its elected board remains in place, although it is failing to make sufficient progress to discontinue the state-mandated oversight.

It has been 14 months since Judy Castleberry, a former executive director of the TEA’s Region 20 Education Service Center, was assigned to oversee the school school board’s operations. She attends board meetings, monitors their activities and reports to TEA monthly.

There was little change in the board’s operations during the first several months of her appointment. Then there was faint optimism between December and late March that the questionable antics of some of the members of this once highly dysfunctional board were becoming a thing of the past.

An influx of new board members and a new board president also offered hope that things might be finally headed in a positive direction. Even the conservator’s monthly reports to TEA reflected the noticeable change. It was a short-lived honeymoon.

Before an exit strategy for the conservator even became a consideration, old school board politics resurfaced. Things are back to the way they were with no expectation they will change.

At one of the last board meetings, Castleberry had to direct the fractured school board to adopt a plan making South San a district of innovation. The dissension made no sense. It is a coveted designation among the more than 1,000 school districts in the state. It gives districts flexibility on some of the state rules when it comes to developing new strategies to improve students’ academic success.

It was troubling to see opposition — from a minority faction led by longtime school board member Connie Prado — cause the board to fall short of the two-thirds majority necessary for approval of the measure.

Linda Longoria and Leticia Guerra, who were recruited for their positions by Prado and who vote in lockstep with her, offered no explanation for their votes against the measure. They did not respond to telephone and email requests for interviews about their votes.

Prado’s vote came as no surprise. She spends much of her time attempting to micromanage district operations and is constantly challenging the school superintendent’s authority.

She has served on the school board for almost two decades but does not have any formal education in education. Her husband, Raul Prado, a former San Antonio city councilman, is a former schoolteacher.

Connie Prado is notorious for coming to meetings armed with lengthy prepared speeches offering alternate proposals on administration initiatives based on information she says she found online.

Prado was re-elected to her post in November, and she has three years left on her current term. She shows no signs of changing her ways and working with her colleagues and the administration.

South San could achieve so much more if the district did not have to spend its resources dealing with Prado’s obstructionist tactics.

Castleberry said she will remain in the district at least through the annual budget process this summer.

At the rate things are going, I suspect her presence will be needed much longer than that.